


This Fire

by myracingthoughts



Series: Hallmark Holiday Movie Bingo [4]
Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Shameless Smut, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:01:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27914944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myracingthoughts/pseuds/myracingthoughts
Summary: Frank hummed, that low, raspy tone that made fire run through her veins, “Just the tree, huh?”They both knew this joint was way too far out of town to be her regular. Too many hours spent on the road, looking for the right lot. He wondered who tipped her off but knew it was fruitless to ask. A journalist never revealed their sources, after all.“And maybe I wanted to say hi,” Karen said a little lower now. “And that I missed you.”She didn’t know what to expect in the way of a reaction, watching as Frank shifted his weight from foot to foot. Wrestling with himself.“You sure you’re not tryin’ to rustle up a little trouble, sweetheart?”
Relationships: Frank Castle/Karen Page
Series: Hallmark Holiday Movie Bingo [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2035525
Comments: 18
Kudos: 65





	This Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to @treaddelicately who lovingly beta’ed this for me!
> 
> This checks off my 'Trip to a Christmas tree lot' Hallmark Holiday Movie Bingo square.

The snow underneath Karen Page’s boots crunched. It was that satisfying point in winter when the sun lay down early, and the snow wasn’t a brown slush lining the streets. That picturesque point of the season when snowfall was still charming, and scarves and hats were still carefully coordinated.

Not that she was held to Manhattan standards here. She wouldn’t be expected to dress up in some skirt suit and kitten heels, not when plaids and denim were so pervasive. And maybe it looked weird, her leaning against her car, staring at the entrance to the Tonawanda tree lot.

Or maybe everyone assumed she was just picking someone up at the end of their shift.

The fairy lights that surrounded it didn’t make for the best surveillance— not when every worker was sporting the same low-slung cap and plaid jacket. But it didn’t take that long to find him, she could tell from the way he held himself. That strut. The jut of his chin and the bark of his laugh. Even through the beard and the long hair.

Waiting for his last customer to leave the lot, she beelined to the gates just as Frank Castle broke out the chain. He didn’t even look up at her as he approached.

“Sorry, ma’am, but we’re closed for the night. Might want to try again tomorrow.”

“Well, you see, I just had a question,” those big brown eyes snapped up to hers, searching as he nearly dropped the chain in his grasp. “What’s the difference between the spruce and the pine?”

His huff clouded the air, hanging for a few seconds like he was making sure she was actually there.

“What are you doin’ here, Karen?” he asked, voice low and gruff.

“Just in the market for a Christmas tree, is all,” she said as airily as she could, trying not to let her voice slip. 

She leaned against the chainlink fence, awaiting an invitation. With a flick of his head to usher her in, Frank swung open the gate, closing it behind her with a grumble as she took to admiring the nearest tree.

“What? A woman can’t cut down her own fir?”

“That’s a blue spruce.”

The click of the lock rang out, and something about him locking them both in her made her heart skip a beat, just for a moment. 

“Blue spruce, yeah. Whatever,” Karen waved off.

She wasn’t scared; she could never be scared of Frank. Karen would have settled on being a little pent up if asked. But being here, so close and yet so far from the man she’d been tracking for months felt a little too much like a Christmas miracle.

So she was starting to anticipate something going wrong.

Frank hummed, that low, raspy tone that made fire run through her veins, “Just the tree, huh?”

They both knew this joint was way too far out of town to be her regular. Too many hours spent on the road, looking for the right lot. He wondered who tipped her off but knew it was fruitless to ask. A journalist never revealed their sources, after all.

“And maybe I wanted to say hi,” Karen said a little lower now. “And that I missed you.”

She didn’t know what to expect in the way of a reaction, watching as Frank shifted his weight from foot to foot. Wrestling with himself. She knew that look better than anyone, knowing better than anyone that no one in the world could talk him out of a decision when he was like this.

“You sure you’re not tryin’ to rustle up a little trouble, sweetheart?”

Karen couldn’t stop the smiling that pulled at her lips, huffing out a chuckle and taking the opportunity to close the gap between them.

“I don’t know what you’re suggesting, _Pete_ ,” she challenged, poking at the handwritten name tag on his chest.

There was a ghost of a smile there, Karen could tell, but he set his jaw stubbornly.

“I thought we agreed.”

It was a cop-out if she had ever heard one, just more excuses for her to keep her distance. For them to restrain themselves from what they really wanted. But if Frank was trying to play this little game, who was she to deny him?

“I don’t know if you _telling_ me counts as agreeing. Plus, I’m here for a tree.”

“You want a tree? Fine,” he sighed, grabbing a saw off a nearby table and putting it into her grasp. “Show me what tree you want, sweetheart.”

Karen was making it up as she went along, pausing to try to get a sense of them. How did people even pick trees? Was it a science so much as an art? Frank probably would’ve told her if she asked, but she was much too stubborn for that, putting on a show as she wove between them. It was only when they were deep in the rows on rows of trees that she turned back to him.

“I think this is the one.”

He licked his lips with a bit of a smirk, “Oh, really?”

“Yeah,” Karen shot back, realizing he was laughing more at what was coming next than her answer. Still, she readied herself like she knew what she was doing, kneeling down in the snow and putting the teeth of the saw against the bark.

Lips brushed her ear as Frank knelt behind her and reached for the saw, helping her place it at the trunk, “You gotta notch it first, so it doesn’t fall on you.”

She could feel the rumble in his chest at the words. He smelled like pine needles and freshly-brewed coffee, cutting a triangle out of the first side before he moved them both to the other with ease. The ripple of his arms solid against her. Circling her. Shielding her. 

One jolt, and the tree was sideways. 

One beat, and Karen’s lips were on his, palms against his chest, scrambling for his jacket collar. Any sort of leverage to hold him closer, to feel him against her. It was frenetic, bordering on frantic as he backed her into a lamppost, the spell long broken. That wall between them torn down in a single action. His lips trailed down her jaw, tracing the line of her neck as she struggled to keep her breath at a natural rhythm.

Teeth grazing her collarbone, Frank’s hands and the pole behind her were the only things keeping her upright.

Karen wanted to be handled. Not with care, like she had in the past, dancing around the act and never fully committing. No, Karen wanted it that raw, animalistic sense of his calloused hands groping every inch of her skin. Losing themselves in the moment. So when Frank pulled away, eyes flickering to either end of the lot to ensure no on-lookers, she deflated, thinking they’d lost the moment.

But Frank surprised them both, silently tugging her towards a trailer on the edge of the property, calling out into the darkness, “I’m out, Greg. Night.”

Karen wasn’t ashamed to say she hadn’t even noticed anyone else in the lot, so wrapped up in the intoxicating sway of Frank Castle. Lost in the rows and rows of dimly-lit trees. Something in the way he wrapped his arm around her, almost possessively that lit some fire in her, having come so close to letting him take her out in the open like that. The dry chill stretching across the bare skin of her neck…

“It ain’t the Four Seasons—” he started, but Karen shook her head, cupping his jaw with her hand as her eyes caught the golden spotlights from above.

“Frank, I was about to let you have your way with me against a tree,” Karen shot back to his chest-rumbling chuckle. “I don’t care where or how. I want _you_.”

“I want you too, sweetheart.”

A small set of steps and a latched door were the only things between them now as she followed him into the small trailer. 

Karen wasn’t ashamed to say that they never made it to the bed. Never even got a chance to flick on the lights. Frank picked her up by the thighs like she weighed nothing at all, mouth mapping everything between her jaw and the curve of her shoulder. The thud and clink as he set her down on the table in the kitchenette startled her, forcing Frank to break the spell as she giggled.

“Not how you pictured your evening going?”

“I like your resourcefulness,” she grinned, looking down at her placement across his eating area. “But I think we’re a little overdressed for the occasion.”

Frank didn’t need to be told twice, “Yes, ma’am.”

He was surprisingly gentle with her clothes, more intrigued by the stretch of skin underneath. Goosebumps trailed behind his fingertips as he traced the lines of her, slipping behind her to unclip her bra without hesitation. Karen would have even congratulated him if her brain was working correctly, but the scruff of his beard against the crook of her neck was almost hypnotic. 

And by the time she’d realized he’d already slipped her panties off, hands trailing further down, she was reaching for him. Trying to hold onto anything she could get her hands on, feeling the pull and ripples of the muscles in his back.

“Mm, you been thinkin’ about me, sweetheart? Late nights just you?” he breathed, fingers moving experimentally against her slit.

Karen couldn’t stop the moan that slipped past her lips as he hit her clit just right. The hiss that followed as he pulled away was met with that flash of teeth in the dark.

“Was that a yes, Miss Page? Use your words now.”

“Yes, Frank,” she shot back, a little more petulant than she meant.

Frank hummed low, “So good for me. So wet for me, sweetheart.”

Trailing her lips against the skin of his neck was the only thing she could do to keep her mind straight. She dug her nails into the meat of his back, the only soundtrack their rough, ragged breathing in the dark. There was that familiar coil in her belly, the way he whispered her name in her ear, urging her to let go as he slipped a finger into her, crooking it the way that made her toes curl.

“Frank.”

It was the only word she could think to form as her right hand dipped lower, wrapping her fingers around the base of him and soaking in his rough moans. Frank knew he had her where he wanted her when her hand slipped off, white knuckles against the edge of the table as she gasped under him.

“Mm, y’look so beautiful for me,” Frank husked, dipping down for a wet kiss.

Karen was the one to reach for the condom he’d managed to pull out at some point, ripping open the package and slipping the condom over him in one smooth motion. Climbing up from his chest to his lips with hers, she gently tugged at his lower lip with her teeth. Challenging him. That glint in his eye was the only thing between Frank fucking her into the floor, and she wanted it all tonight.

Who knew when they would have this kind of chance again.

Frank groaned as he slipped his cock into her, feeling the tight heat he’d been dreaming of since he saw her at the gate. He seemed to lose himself in Karen, the gentleness fading as he picked up the pace, watching her tits bounce in the dark. Leaning over, he swirled his tongue around a nipple, a proud smile on his face as she arched her back towards him.

“So sensitive.”

Wrapping her legs around his hips, she tried to pull him closer, trying to work the growl out of him, the one that made her legs turn to jelly. Karen wanted _more_ , needed more, and Frank was quick to slip his hands between them, quickly working her over. Flinging her head back against the wall of the trailer, Karen waited for the sensation to overtake her. The wave washed over her like a freight train at the friction against her clit, and she’d lost control of her voice, crying out into the dark.

And that seemed to spur Frank on, all bets off as he stuttered to a halt, frozen as she stared up at him. Still in a daze. Still in a dream. Seeing the halo of lot lights curving around his head like some old cheesy movie.

But the part she’d missed the most, beyond the initial hunger and pining, was what followed. The way gently picked her up, guiding her towards the small bathroom as he readied the bed. Picking her up bridal style and dropping her into the covers. And then he just seemed to engulf her, this strong, warm cocoon around her that she tried to breathe in, tried to memorize the sight, the smell and the feel of it.

Bathing in the afterglow. The safety and security under these covers in the middle of nowhere upstate New York. The scent of gun oil and Christmas trees. The crack of floodlights slipping through the curtains. The rumble of Frank’s chest, breathing her in.

And to think her night started staking out a Christmas tree lot.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading. All comments, kudos and bookmarks are loved and cherished.


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